Adam of St Victor

Sacramental Poetry Vol. II Adam of St Victor First edition

In our continuing effort to publish as much work of the writers within the St. Victor Abbey, which established the first major university of this era and with France, known today as the University of Paris, we debut this series with the works of Adam of St. Victor. ADAM of ST. VICTOR: The Abbey of St. Victor, from which the great Latin hymnologist takes his name, and which, originally, was in the suburbs of Paris, was later on absorbed into the city itself, as she enlarged her borders, was celebrated, especially in the twelfth century, as a school of theology. Probably no other religious foundation could boast of such a brilliant triad of doctors of divinity, as the one that graced this Abbey during that century in the persons of Hugh of St. Victor, known to his generation as the Second Augustine; his pupil, Richard of St. Victor, named Alter Augustine; and Adam of St. Victor, the author of the Sequences in these volumes, who, as will be apparent to the most cursory reader was even deeply versed in the learning of the school to which he belonged. In offering this work to the public I am breaking what is practically new ground to the great majority of English readers. The circumstances, detailed in the introduction to M. Gautier's Edition, of which the larger part of the poetry of Adam of St. Victor was entirely lost to the world for many years after the French Revolution. In this day and age, it appears to be a great to give an interest and novelty regarding it in this country at this day from the only other English Edition, published in Paris in 1858- 9, has only to a very limited degree been averted. I feel therefore that, so far as the original text is concerned, I am doing a good service to the lovers of Medieval Hymnology, by rendering it more accessible to them in this, by using the first edition of it, published in England, and reviving it before it enters into obscurity.